Machine gun attack on U.N. Mali base in Timbuktu kills seven

Gunmen attacked a United Nations peacekeeping base in the northern Mali city of Timbuktu on Monday, officials said, killing seven people, including five Malian security guards, a gendarme and civilian.

“An attack has been launched against one of our camps in Timbuktu (by) unknown men with machine guns,” Radhia Achouri, a spokeswoman for the U.N. peacekeeping mission, said earlier by telephone, adding that it had deployed a rapid response force with helicopters to the scene.

Mali’s army spokesman Selon Diaran Kone said the incident was now over, as the assailants had been repelled and four of them killed.